Pixar's SDS "technology" has been licensed from everybody and their dog for years, actually. Thanks to some patents granted on creasing it was either doing that, or risking litigation, or offsetting whole sets of features from the way they would have looked in PRMan.
In theory only the RR semi-sharp creasing algorithm is patented, and some vendors worked around it with different methods, but it's always been slightly ubiquitous and many bigger fishes decided not to risk it, or simply to align to PRMan's look for those, and license away. Soft has had the same Pixar licensing note forever, and Houdini could render creases in SDS in PRMan for ages, but not in Mantra, due to the same patents (RR SS creasing). Air, 3Delight and MRay work around it with different algorithms. This new openSubD stuff is really interesting, I do resent they had to go for the MS open source licensing though (MS-Pl I think), but it seemed unavoidable given the collaboration, and all in all it's not too bad a license anyway. On Fri, Apr 26, 2013 at 3:23 AM, Ponthieux, Joseph G. (LARC-E1A)[LITES] < j.ponthi...@nasa.gov> wrote: > That would make perfect sense. **** > > ** ** > > Maya subdivision technology has been licensed from Pixar for years. But to > what extent is not clear. **** > > ** ** > > > http://images.autodesk.com/adsk/files/maya_8.5_service_pack_1_release_notes.pdf( > p2, legal notice). >
